The King in the North had his ups, he had his downs, and he ended the season not horribly murdered. Game of Thrones’ Jon Snow ended up having a fine season.
For a brief moment in “The Dragon and the Wolf,” it looked as though Jon Snow would end up having the worst season of the three rulers currently in power on Game of Thrones. That’s saying something considering that he’s in competition with Cersei Lannister. But thanks to Tyrion Lannister’s way with words and Jaime Lannister’s staring down the Mountain, he did not have the worst season.
Jon’s strengths are always going to be his biggest weaknesses. For all his popularity, he’s not politically savvy — not enough to make promises he can’t keep in order to actually have a shot of getting Cersei to give in and not enough to realize that maybe going straight to Dragonstone was also unwise, though both turned out well for him. He’s honorable and all, but he has to represent the interests of his people, and that should include outmaneuvering others when it requires.
Additionally, the decision to bend the knee to Daenerys, while it does solve a long-term problem narratively speaking — that is, it gets the two more “heroic” characters together to oppose Cersei, who is the human villain of the series at this point, and it prevents us from having to choose between Daenerys and Jon — is, in the short-term, going to be a problem.
As of Monday, one day after the finale, there’s already a new going theory that Tyrion will play spoiler to the new power couple. This says nothing of how Sansa might feel when she meets Daenerys, although we think she’ll adjust since it could effectively make her full-time Lady of Winterfell. Why? I’ve already made the prediction that Daenerys and Jon will end up together on a permanent basis, but I have the feeling that the course will not end up running smoothly.
Politically (and romantically!) speaking, Jon’s in a better position at the end of the season than where he started, but in terms of the existential threat … hoo boy, Jon has a lot of work to do with Longclaw.
(Yes, I’ve already made a prediction about that, too.)
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So, we’ll give him a B. At least he didn’t get killed again, right? There were a lot of times that could have happened.